1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer systems and the like. More particularly, the present invention relates to apparatus and methods for managing computer systems in a network environment.
2. Description of Related Art
A computer platform can be designed with a variety of implementations/architectures that are either defined within existing standards, for example the PCI Industrial Computer Manufactures Group (PICMG) standards, or can be customized architectures. For example, a computer platform can be designed with a Compact Peripheral Component Interconnect (CPCI). The CPCI is a high performance industrial bus based on the standard PCI electrical specification in rugged 3U or 6U Eurocard packaging. CPCI is intended for application in telecommunications, computer telephony, real-time machine control, industrial automation, real-time data acquisition, instrumentation, military systems or any other application requiring high-speed computing, modular and robust packaging design, and long-term manufacturer support. Because of its high speed and bandwidth, the CPCI bus is particularly well suited for many high-speed data communication applications, such as for server applications.
Compared to a standard desktop PCI, CPCI supports twice as many PCI slots (typically 8 versus 4) and offers an ideal packaging scheme for industrial applications. Conventional CPCI cards are designed for front loading and removal from a card cage. The cards are firmly held in position by their connector, card guides on both sides, and a faceplate that solidly screws into the card cage. Cards are mounted vertically allowing for natural or forced air convection for cooling. Also, the pin-and-socket connector of the CPCI card is significantly more reliable and has better shock and vibration characteristics than the card edge connector of the standard PCI cards.
Conventional CPCI defines a backplane environment that is limited to eight slots. More specifically, the bus segment of the conventional CPCI system is limited to eight slots, which includes a system slot and peripheral slots. A host central processing unit (CPU) card (or front card or a system card or a motherboard) occupies the system slot and provides the clocking, arbitration, configuration, and interrupt processing for up to seven peripheral slots. The peripheral slots can be populated with input/output (I/O) cards or satellite CPU cards.
Each of these cards can be designed with a telecommunications network and may be considered as a network element of the telecommunications network. Over the last decade the telecommunications network has been in transition. In the past, network elements in the network were primarily designed for switched-voice traffic and were relatively simple. It was based on copper loops for subscriber access and a network of telephone exchanges to process calls. These network elements are evolving into one designed for integrated access, transport, and switching of voice, high-speed data, and video. The network elements in future telecommunications networks will be based on a variety of complex technologies. As a result of its complexity, each network element of the future should be accompanied by a management agent (or an element management system) that harnesses the power of the network element while masking its complexity. The management agent should also manage each of the network elements in a distributed manner. That is, each management agent manages resources on its network element and collaborates with another designated management agent (or a master agent) running on another designated network element for system-wide resources management. The operating system running on each of the network elements (or cards or CPUs) can be Solaris, ChorusOS, VxWork, Linux, etc. The management agent depends on the operating system running on the network element. However, the various operating systems that can be ran with the network elements may not be compatible with each other. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a management agent that can be ran with and/or is portable across various different operating systems. Thus, It would be advantageous to develop a management agent that is an operating system independent and/or to develop an interface system capable of porting a management agent across the various different operating systems.